Todd Wider is an American plastic surgeon and Emmy Award winning film producer based in New York, who is active in documentary filmmaking.
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He graduated from Ward Melville High School in 1982, Princeton University in 1986, and Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1990.
As a surgeon, he was active in helping the passage of the Women's Health and Cancer Act of 1998, federal legislation signed into law by President Bill Clinton, mandating insurance coverage for breast cancer reconstruction. He also was a volunteer surgeon for Victims Services, an organization providing surgery to victims of abuse, and was a volunteer surgeon at Ground Zero after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City.[1]
As a film producer, Wider has produced, with his brother Jedd, Beyond Conviction (2006), a documentary about restorative justice in the Pennsylvania prison system that premiered on MSNBC, was featured on Oprah, and won a number of awards. Wider also produced What Would Jesus Buy? (2007), a Morgan Spurlock film about consumerism in the United States that focuses on the performance artist Billy Talen. He is also an executive producer of Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), a documentary about prisoner abuse directed by Alex Gibney that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary of 2008. Taxi to the Dark Side also won an Emmy for Best Documentary of 2008. Wider also produced The Untyings (2006), a film about exorcism in Romania and A Dream in Doubt (2006), directed by Tami Yeager, a documentary about intolerance in the wake of the September 11 attacks that focuses on a Sikh family in Arizona. In addition, he produced Kicking It (2007), a documentary about the Homeless World Cup, an international tournament for the homeless football league, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008, and features Colin Farrell and the music of U2. He also produced A Time to Stir which screened as a work-in-progress at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival and concerns the Columbia University 1968 student uprisings. He also produced "Client #9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer" (2010). Client 9 was shortlisted for Academy Award consideration for Best Documentary of 2010. Wider also produced Semper Fi, Always Faithful, about water contamination at the Camp Lejeune Marine base and one Marine's crusade to find justice for his daughter, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2011. "Semper Fi, Always Faithful" was shortlisted for Academy Award consideration for Best Documentary of 2011.